There have been surprisingly few reports on the iron content of whole blood in infants and in children. Although a few articles have appeared dealing with iron in capillary blood, we have been unable to find reports of any work on the iron content of venous blood in children. The following study is based on determinations of the iron content of the venous blood of 135 children. Forty-eight of these were relatively normal and 87 had various pathologic conditions.

Van Vyve1 in 1902 determined the amount of iron in the defibrinated cord blood of 116 new-born infants. In infants born at term the quantity varied around the mean figure of 45 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters. Tagliamuro2 in 1907 found the iron content of the blood in 6 normal children aged from 7 months to 6 years to be between 33 and 48 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters.